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Among the factors impacting functioning and quality of life in autism, aspects of the built environment have recently gained increasing attention. However, the opportunity of proposing a universal framework for cross-scalar examination of these factors remains largely unrealized. By narrowing the focus to public transport, a key component of urban spatial structure and urban mobility, this review intends to explore the applicability of the World Health Organization’s International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF) in examining the built environmental factors that influence autism. A scoping review was conducted, with searches performed across nine databases, resulting in the identification of 14 studies at the intersection of public transport and autism. In addition to a descriptive narrative of the key findings, 10 of these studies were linked to the ICF through concepts describing the environmental barriers and facilitators impacting the functioning of autistic individuals in public transport. The results demonstrate the potential of the ICF, particularly if equipped with detailed categories of built environment factors, to provide a framework for addressing spatial barriers and facilitators pertinent to functioning in autism in a language accessible to researchers and practitioners across various fields beyond clinical and health-related domains.
Sarraf et al. (Sun,) studied this question.